Macroscopic plant remains from Mediterranean caves and rockshelters: Avenues of interpretation

Abstract

Macrobotanical remains from caves and rockshelters in the Mediterranean provide substantial information about past human use of the sites as well as the surrounding environment. The modes of deposition of both fresh and carbonized plant material in the past are varied and it is not always possible to distinguish among the geogenic, biogenic, and anthropogenic processes. Once deposited, seeds and other plant parts may be preserved through desiccation, mineralization, or, most commonly, carbonization, depending on the environment of the cave or rockshelter as well as human and other animal activities. It is assumed that large quantities of carbonized remains are the result of human activity, and such dense deposits can be used as a measure of the intensity of occupation of the site. Where sufficient remains of wood charcoal are recovered from stratified deposits, it is possible to identify the local vegetation and changes in the surrounding plant communities through time. When compared to other environmental information, such as pollen studies, it is possible to obtain a more complete picture of the environment and to identify refugia for Mediterranean plants during the Pleistocene. In some cases, plants that are underrepresented or not at all represented in pollen spectra from lacustrine deposits may be recovered from the archaeological sites. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Macrobotanical remains and shell-midden formation processes, are they related? The case of Poças de São Bento (Portugal)

“…On the one hand, shellmiddens are far from ideal deposits for the preservation of charred plant macroremains which become easily eroded in soils with a high level of calcium carbonate (Braadbaart, Poole and van Brussel 2009). On the other hand, because of the Mediterranean climate, with its very hot and dry summers, carbonised remains near the surface may have dried out and broken up when exposed to percolating moisture during the wet autumn and winter (Hansen 2001). However, the existence of multiple charring and deposition events being responsible for the assemblage, most likely in tertiary position (Fuller, Stevens and McClatchie 2014), can also explain these heterogeneous states of preservation, particularly when differences are seen at the horizontal distribution.…”

“…This, however, does not seem to match the character of the site as a midden in which occupation floors have not been identified yet. More likely, this small size of the plant macroremains could also be a result of the climate which promotes charcoal cracking (Hansen 2001), which might also account for the sparseness of the determined finds (but not the undetermined) over all the sequence. These types of dispersed distributions have been proven upon radiocarbon dating to be often subjected to intrusive charred materials (Crombé et al 2013), particularly in palimpsest-like sites where fertile archaeological stratigraphical units are vertically contiguous with one another; this probably accounts for the lack of taxonomical difference between the different stratigraphical units (ancient plant macroremains have probably been displaced throughout the sequence) and the percolation of uncharred modern specimens to the lower units.…”

“…The fruits might have been brought either intentionally, perhaps eaten and their endocarps discarded into the fire, or accidentally, within the stomach contents of hunted animals, which might or might not have been exploited (Buck and Stringer 2014). The seeds from both taxa, however, are rich in oils which have traditionally been used for culinary purposes (Fern 1992(Fern -2010Flora iberica 1986+); the extreme fragmentation of the endocarps might have been produced by pressing the uncharred endocarps in order to extract the oils or perhaps is just a postdepositional result (Hansen 2001).…”

Macrofossil evidence for pre‐settlement vegetation of Central Otago's basin floors and gorges

“…although most rockshelters examined in this study had only thin (<50 mm) sediment horizons containing plant remains, these macrofossils were diverse and well-preserved by natural desiccation. Preservation of desiccated plant remains is dependent on geology suitable for the formation of caves and rockshelters, and a consistently arid microclimate within these sites (Hansen 2001). apart from Central Otago, few other regions of New Zealand are likely to meet these criteria, although desiccated Holocene floral and faunal remains have been reported from other parts of South island (e.g., Duff 1952;Forrest 1987;Worthy 1989).…”

The Absolute Chronology of the Zoogenic Deposits From the Negev Desert (Israel)

“…Organic material accumulated at the cave bottom offers an opportunity for analysis of different kinds of plant and animal remains like pollen (Navarro Camacho et al, 2000;Navarro et al, 2001;Scott et al, 2005), macrofossils (Hansen, 2001;Holmgren et al 2001), phytoliths (Wallis, 2001;Scott, 2002), bones (Andrews, 1990;Tomek and Bocheński, 2005), charcoal (Cowling et al, 1999;Asouti, 2003) and many others. Reconstructions of ecosystem history based on these analyses must rest on a firmly established absolute chronology.…”